


Taking Solace Between the Fangs of a Beast

by yoshizora



Category: Xenoblade Chronicles X
Genre: F/F, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-25
Updated: 2018-07-25
Packaged: 2019-06-16 01:02:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15425574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yoshizora/pseuds/yoshizora
Summary: Two years ago, Irina was lost.Two years ago, Murderess needed an outlet.





	Taking Solace Between the Fangs of a Beast

**Author's Note:**

> i've always had this headcanon that irina and murderess had A History, given that they seem to know a lot about each other during the game despite their antagonistic relationship

Reality settles in when the shrapnel stops flying.

Space is vast. Space is silent. Space is terrifying because of the sheer unknowns and uncertainties they must anticipate as the White Whale flees the war. There’s not a moment to rest in the first few days, when the Skell pilots patrol the exterior of the ship and the crew frantically tries to contact _any_ of the other evacuation ships that had managed to depart from the Earth’s atmosphere.

But none of them did, evidently.

Sharon tries not to dwell too long on what this all means, because she’d simply never been the type to dwell… which is what she would tell anyone else to their face, when the truth is the exact opposite.

It’s not like she’s a stranger to death. But the death of millions and millions of people is a difficult thing to wrap one’s head around, and Sharon finds herself numbly going through the everyday routines of drills and patrols and anything to keep their minds alert and busy—  _anything_. No one wants to sit in silence and think, least of all her.

But all those tumultuously human things are unavoidable. In one of the hangars that’d been set up as a temporary mess hall and place of respite for soldiers while the habitual zone is still under maintenance (hit too hard from the attacks, the city’s not even halfway constructed), she finds herself drawn to the noise of punches being traded.

Metals cracking against metal. Mechanical sputtering. The sickening sound of flesh splitting. Furious yelling. Excited shouting. Sharon pushes her way through the crowd and sees two people grappling with each other, a man and woman, one of whom she thinks she might recognize from the higher ranks.

It’s the most uplifting thing she’s seen all week, frankly.

“It ain’t any of your business, so back off!”

“He’s _your brother_ , you goddamn asshole!”

“That piece of shit is no family of mine! Not anymore!”

“ _—Fucking bastard!!_ ”

The woman hurls herself at him with a primal viciousness that even makes Sharon wince. They’re punching each other over and over and over again, screaming themselves hoarse, the brutality escalating to a point where even the crowd begins to hush and back off, uncertain, now genuinely concerned those two may actually beat each other to death.

One other person steps up, hands helplessly held forward in a uselessly placating gesture. He’s not getting anywhere near them.

“Please… cut it out, you two… Frye. We should… talk…”

“Shut the fuck up—!!”

“ _HE’S YOUR BROTHER._ ”

Sharon watches on with wide eyes, and she realizes she’s smiling. But the entertainment is short-lived— someone else arrives now, her footsteps echoing through the hangar. Both fighters pause.

Even Sharon knows who this is, and her smile slides right off her face as she wordlessly steps aside to let her through.

“It’s the Colonel…” someone whispers.

“Lieutenant,” Elma says, surveying their bloodied, smashed faces. “What do you think you’re _doing?_ ”

“I’m— I’m sorry, Colonel, I stepped out of line and lost my temper, I—“

“Stop. I don’t want to hear your excuses now, Irina.” Her anger is quiet and cold, carefully contained beneath a veneer of steel authority. Irina shakily stands up, her fingers twitching and sparking, and her arm jerks unsteadily when she tries to salute.

“Can we truly afford to fight amongst ourselves in these circumstances?” Elma yells, and all the other soldiers flinch, looking away in shame. “I’m disappointed in you, Lieutenant. And you…”

“It’s Frye,” the man spits blood to the side.

“Right. Frye.” Elma’s eyes sweep the crowd. They meet Sharon’s just for a split second.

“Colonel—“ Irina starts.

“Report to me once you’re cleaned up. Both of you. Everyone else, back to your stations!”

 

But Elma’s harsh words do little to quell the fights that break out amongst the passengers of the White Whale in the upcoming days and weeks and _months_. Of course people would fight, what with all the strained tension that hangs over everyone like swaying nooses. Hope is a difficult thing to grasp when their home had been destroyed for no apparent goddamn reason and they haven’t even a clear destination set, only the slim chance that they’ll happen upon some habitable planet and struggle on. 

For what? To survive?

Sharon had always prided herself on her tenacity, but when she stares out a window and sees nothing but an endless void pricked with galaxies too far away to properly count, she wonders what the _point_ of it is.

The human race may very well die off. And with that, so would her dream.

 

She encounters Lieutenant Irina Akulov exactly one Earth month after she had watched her and Frye Christoph beat the everloving shit out of each other.

They walk right past each other in the newly-finished Administrative District of New Los Angeles, and Sharon has to practically shout to be heard over the loud industrial noises of heavy machinery and construction.

“I said, _hey!_ ”

Irina stops, turns, and stares hard at Sharon. They stand there for what seems like an eternity, too far away from each other, before Sharon finally rolls her eyes and walks over to close the distance.

“Uh, do I know you?” Irina asks.

“I almost didn’t recognize you without your face being a tenderized mess.”

“What?” Irina’s eyes narrow.

“Oh, don’t try to sweep it under the rug. That fight was all anyone would talk about for days.”

Irina’s face lifts in realization, then her expression darkens. “Ugh…”

And she’s already walking off.

And Sharon can’t exactly blame her, because no one wants to dwell on things like that, even if it’s impossible not to. Just like how she’s been dwelling for the past decade and a half, because there’d be nothing else keeping her going otherwise.

The destruction of Earth. The deaths of loved ones. The despair of it all. Yadda yadda. People grieve in their own ways, _whatever_ , and Sharon would prefer to believe she’s dealt with enough emotional bullcrap in her lifetime that she doesn’t need to do things like… Lieutenant Akulov, who can’t even acknowledge a little fistfight she had.

Sharon’s never particularly cared about other people and their problems, but for some reason, she just wants to know what exactly had instigated that fight one month ago.

_Call it curiosity._

“Wait. Drinks are on me. Let’s go.”

“Huh—?”

Too late, she’s got a firm grip on Irina’s arm and is dragging her away.

 

People grieve in their own different ways. Sharon grieves by spinning her sorrow into anger and becoming someone jaded enough to step between the fangs of a beast without fear nor worry.

 

“He died,” Irina says through clenched teeth, one hand covering her face. They made it back to Sharon’s quarters in the barracks— private, thanks to all the strings she pulled— and now she’s mixing more drinks at the kitchen bar while Irina tries not to cry on the couch.

“He died and I could’ve _saved him_.”

“Yeah? How?”

“I… I don’t know.” Her voice cracks. “I don’t even know where he was when the ships took off— but I should’ve, I should’ve known, he was my brother— god _damnit!_ ”

Ah, she’s crying for real now.

Sharon stares at her for a long, long time, holding a bottle of some of that gross artificial brew they make on the ship.

“Hey— I’m sorry, I…” Irina slowly runs her hands over her face and looks up, eyes bloodshot. “I didn’t even introduce myself yet. I’m Irina.”

Sharon bites her tongue before the name slips out. _Murderess._ And she’s not sure why.

People grieve in many different ways.

“… I’m Sharon. Sharon Effinger.”

“Wish we could’ve met under better circumstances,” Irina bitterly chuckles, and she swallows back more tears.

Sharon takes a swig straight from the bottle, leaves the half-finished cocktails on the counter, and goes to sit with Irina.

 

Irina had happened to come across a… dispute between the Christoph brothers. They had lost their father. He’d given up his spot on the White Whale for someone else, a complete stranger, and the elder Christoph just couldn’t understand.

He couldn’t understand his younger brother’s quiet acceptance either, and his confusion and grief only turned into rage. He was in the middle of _disowning_ him, as laughable as Sharon thought that sounded, and Irina just couldn’t be a bystander to that.

It’s sad, the way people project their issues onto others.

 

“We had a dad who didn’t give a crap about us.”

“My mother and father lavished me with love and gifts.”

“Leon was all I had, and I was all he had.”

“My family was my everything.”

“When we got a chance to get away from that hellhole, we _ran._ ”

“They were taken away from me.”

“I… I wish I had a mother.”

Sharon puts down the bottle and looks into Irina’s eyes, hazy. Maybe it’s her own eyes that are hazy. “You didn’t have a mother?”

“She died after Leon was born.”

“Rough.”

“You, too.”

She sort of snickers, but Irina just sniffles and takes the bottle from Sharon. It’s the fourth one they’ve shared.

 

Sharon understands it, at last, when she kisses Irina’s tears away and Irina clings to her like she’s a lifeline. Human beings find comfort in each other’s suffering. That’s the beauty of it all. Irina found comfort in brawling with Frye, and now Sharon finds comfort in… this, the warmth of her skin and the sorrow of her story.

Her own story intertwines with it as well. Tragedy is nothing special anymore. All that’s left to do is hope the pain can be lessened before the end.

Soon, she finds herself crying as well, unable to cope with the very real possibility that she may never be able to see her dream brought to fruition.

“Hey. What’s the matter?” Irina whispers, brushing her thumbs across her wet cheeks.

She’d never told _anyone_ about any of it, from the murder to the years spent on the streets to the moniker to the vow she made.

But she’d taken in all of Irina’s story, so she least she could do it listen to Sharon’s own sob story in return, right?

“I promised my parents that I’d bring our family name to glory again,” Sharon flatly says, concealing the bitter edge. “They didn’t deserve to die. The bastard who killed them… he was likely vaporized with everyone else, back on Earth. So all I can do now is rebuild our wealth and our legacy.”

Irina thinks she may understand because of her own sentiments with family, but she doesn’t. She couldn’t. Even if they had both struggled and grieved and despaired, they couldn’t be any more different.

Surely.

“But,” Sharon says, wincing at her own weakness. “That’s kind of hard, when we’re all stuck on this damn ship for the foreseeable future.”

But then Irina buries her face to the crook of Sharon’s neck and she realizes she may have underestimated this woman’s stupidly _good_ heart.

“Let me help you.”

“Don’t,” is her immediate response, cold and warning.

“I’m serious. If it’s for your family, I want to help.” Irina murmurs, and she holds Sharon closely in her arms. “I’ll find a way… any way. I promise.”

Mimeosomes are state of the art technology. They’re intricate machines meant to feel exactly like the real thing they’re imitating, with not a single fault and the slimmest possibilities of malfunction. It's more likely to catch a cold than for any of the biological functions of a mim to go awry.

Sharon thinks something may be wrong with her own mimeosome when her heart begins to thump so hard in her chest she fears it could burst.

 

 

Two years is a long, long time to grieve, as well as to acclimate. By the time the White Whale crashes on Mira and the military is reshuffled to make way for BLADE, things have changed. Agendas have changed.

She shoots Irina in the back without a second thought, on the first assignment they take together as a pair. Irina’s wounded look of utter hurt and betrayal and disbelief and _rage_ isn’t enough to make Sharon falter, and she points the gun to her as if she means to fire a second shot.

She wouldn’t, but Irina doesn’t know that.

“ _Why would you—_ ” Irina chokes, translucent blue fluid spilling from her mouth. She’ll live, but she won’t be moving anytime soon.

“That reward for the assignment is mine. All of it.”

“Are you kidding me?!”

“Remember your promise to me, Irina?”

Of course she does. She always did. Up until now, Irina had held that promise close to her chest with all the foolishness of someone who was too hotheaded to cope properly.

Oh, Irina.

“Don’t call me Sharon anymore,” she says, the cracks long since sealed off since the night they had spilled their selves to each other.

Irina isn’t crying. Good. If she had cried, Murderess may have had to shoot her again. She gazes down at Irina with a sickening smile, resolution blazing once more now that hope has finally begun to take its roots in the remnants of humanity upon this uncharted planet. The possibilities are endless. Now's the time to reaffirm her own tenacity.

“It’s Murderess. Just Murderess.”


End file.
